Garfield man rescues woman from robbery, captures suspect

William Capozzi of Garfield stopped to help a woman being beaten by two purse thieves Thursday in Passaic. The disabled carpenter, who caught one of the suspects, said, "When you see a woman being dragged about, you don't think about the danger. You just do something."

William Capozzi had to make a quick choice Thursday afternoon when he saw two thugs pounce on a woman as he drove across the Wall Street Bridge into Passaic:

Do something and risk his life. Or do nothing, keep driving and live to forget.

Capozzi, a disabled carpenter from Garfield, chose to do something. And because of him, two robbery suspects are behind bars and their would-be victim still has her pocketbook, police said.

"It was a spur of the moment thing," Capozzi, 48, said of his split-second decision to chase two teenagers who had just pummeled a 66-year-old Garfield woman to the ground. "I didn't really have time to think about it. But when you see a woman being dragged about, you don't think about the danger. You just do something."

Capozzi said he was in his custom BMW and headed to the ShopRite on Eighth Street when he saw two youths grappling with a woman as they tried to grab her handbag.

The woman fought back and managed to hold onto the bag; Capozzi, with his windows down, put the pedal to the metal and gave chase as the youths fled.

The teens turned the corner onto Ninth Street, a one-way street, with Capozzi in hot pursuit. Although he's disabled from a back injury he suffered in 2010, Capozzi said the adrenaline just took over.

After a brief chase up the one-way street, Capozzi jumped out of the car and grabbed one of the teens and pinned him to the hood of the car. The other youth had fled down the street.

"He was trying to get away, but I had control of him," Capozzi said. "I'm a pretty big guy. I can handle myself."

Police handcuffed the suspect, later identified as Jalen Torres, 18, of Paterson and took him down to headquarters.

Capozzi said police told him to go to headquarters to give a statement.

Detective Andy White, a spokesman for the Passaic police, said detectives soon learned the whereabouts of the second suspect, a 16-year-old. Police arrested the boy at an apartment on Ninth Street and brought him in for questioning.

White said Torres was charged with robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery, both first-degree offenses. Torres also was charged with conspiring with a juvenile to commit a crime, White said. The juvenile was charged with robbery and conspiracy. Torres was being held in the Passaic police lockup Thursday night, pending an appearance before a judge; the 16-year-old was headed to the Juvenile Detention Center in Essex County, White said.

White declined to release the identity of the victim, but said the 66-year-old woman declined medical treatment at the scene. White called Capozzi a "good Samaritan" — someone who rushed to the aid of a stranger without thinking about the danger to himself.

Although police never advise people to take matters into their own hands, "in this case, it worked out pretty well," White said.

Capozzi said it wasn't until he left police headquarters that he thought about the danger. "It could have been dangerous for me, I guess," he said. "They could have had a knife or a gun."

A married father of four children, Capozzi said he's put three kids through college before a freak accident on a Christmas Eve ended his career as a union carpenter. He had worked on big projects that included the entertainment complex in the Meadowlands formerly known as Xanadu, and the Jets training facility in Florham Park.

"I stepped into a pothole in Paterson that was covered with leaves," Capozzi recalled. "I had to crawl out on my elbows. It kind of shifted everything around in my back."

Capozzi said he wasn't thinking about his back on Thursday. "They were really ripping this woman, throwing her down in the street," he said. "When you see that, you have to do something. I mean, what if that was my mother?"